Inspire Mark
After sitting on this like a constipated hen for the past few weeks, I can now go public that Unsilent Night is one of the projects granted the London 2012 Inspire Mark which recognises exceptional and innovative projects inspired by the 2012 Games.
In this case, the association is through our work in throwing open the cupboard upon a wealth of archive film, pulling off kid gloves in fusing old with new and encouraging investigation of early cinema by stepping outside (literally) of the multiplex experience.
Unsilent Night
The Great Train Robbery / image source BFI
I can now reveal that following the great response to last year's relay of Nosferatu accompanied by a live original soundtrack, similar plans are far advanced for what we hope will be an annual recurring event: Unsilent Night. In conjunction with Liverpool Music Week and BBC Radio Merseyside's PMS show fronted by Roger Hill, we'll be taking a foolhardy step forward from the single-film format to screen six silent shorts - many from the BFI archive - that will be treated to new and in some cases entirely improvised soundtracks by North West musicians a.P.a.T.t, Fonik and Frakture, in a one-off event on Thursday 29th October at 7pm.
Invaluable support comes from the brave and perhaps a little flummoxed folk at Liverpool City Council, Northwest Vision & Media and Liverpool City Central BID. The line-up will be revealed over the next few weeks, but will include arguably the first narrative film, The Great Train Robbery (1903), directed by Edwin S. Porter and 12 minutes in length.
This includes a now iconic final shot of a gun being fired at the camera/audience, said to cause those present to leap and squeal in fright. But will modern audiences well-versed in staring fear in the face by riding the upper deck of the night bus on a Friday night even bat an eyelid? At least we'll be well-ventilated should anyone backfire.
Addictive TV
Last weekend I trotted over to support my colleague Louise Angell at the Big Screen Derby, which occupies a key spot at the heart of the Market Place adjacent to QUAD where much of the landmark activity for the three-day street celebration that is Feste 09 was taking place. Saturday night culminated in easily the LOUDEST big screen event I have ever seen or heard as Addictive TV fused a unique blend of classic and contemporary film, dance music and visuals for a spectacular VJ remix at the base and above.
Hopping between classic archive footage of Jazz greats coupled with Laurel and Hardy, they segued effortlessly into remixes of The Fast & The Furious, vintage Star Trek (oh, for a repeat burst laser button of my own), a mash-up between New Order and Franz Ferdinand and a finale involving The Italian Job that supplanted a caffeine drip as I nearly keeled over with sensory-stimulation. I had to be led shaking to the nearest pint before I could begin to make sense of it all.
TV Interruptions
David Hall: TV Interruptions 1971
Video artist David Hall confusing the living hell out of the Scottish public during the 1971 Edinburgh Festivals with his seminal TV Interruptions series. Broadcast unannounced as part of domestic television schedules, those at home on the couch were suddenly faced with the perplexing sight of the goggle box slowing filling with water from a tap, ablaze in the middle of a field or switched to fast-forward in a communal viewing room to the sound of background screams...
David Hall: TV Interruptions 1971
In celebration we are showing these again on the Big Screen Edinburgh by kind permission of REWIND, a research and preservation project for early video art at the University of Dundee. Thanks are also due to Edinburgh Art Festival and curator Lucy Keany, for baffling a new generation of unwitting observers. Appearing daily from 5th August to 5th September, at purposely unknowable timings...
How does it feel
Copyright North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University
A peak at one of the still image grabs from the wonderful archive footage appearing in the giant interactive public video carousel that is Places of Public Resort. This picture is from a film clip of a traditional traveling fair (by traditional, I mean trashy, dirty, vulgar), and is accompanied by a nightime excerpt of a ride on the Waltzers.
The lights streak by in a sherbet blur as New Order's 'Blue Monday' blares from the speakers, stomachs clenched, the persons in the wrong corner of the car crushed by the sliding forms of their companions (or the right corner of the car, if that was your intent), spinning, speeding, colour, sound, chaos, joy... if I could erase my textbook image of heaven as a field with daisies and the occasional harpist, this is what I would replace it with. To err is human, to choke back popcorn peppered vomit on a disco deathtrap, divine.
Places of Public Resort
A big thanks to illustrator Michael Snowdon for the fantastic flyer art to accompany the print for Places of Public Resort, which has been awarded the Olympic Inspire Mark as a stand-out cultural leader. I couldn't have reached this stage, only a few weeks until public launch, without the help of the many people involved. Particularly Marion Hewitt at North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University and her colleague and co-curator of this project, Will McTaggart for their patience, enthusiasm and valuable expertise, Andrew Hooper and Jason Taylor at ICDC and the programming team at ONTECA.